Editor’s Note: The following is an English translation of a document that has been circulating across Palestine today as Palestinians have staged a historic General Strike. You can find a shareable versions on Instagram and Twitter.
The Dignity and Hope Manifesto
The Unity Intifada
People of Palestine,
Here we are, writing a new chapter of courage and pride, in which we tell a story of justice and of the truth that no level of Israeli colonial repression can erase, however cruel and brutal that repression may be.
The story of truth is a simple one in our land: the truth is that Palestinians are one people, one society. Zionist gangs forced out most of our people, it stole our homes and destroyed our villages. Then Zionism decided to shred what remained of Palestine, isolating us and separating us in small strips of our land. They tried to turn us into different societies, each living apart, each in its own separate prison. That is how Zionism has sought to control us, that is how they worked to fragment our political will, and to prevent a united struggle in the face of racist settler colonialism in all of Palestine.
This is how Israel imprisoned us in prisons of isolation; some of us caged in the “Oslo prison” in the West Bank, some in the “citizenship prison” in the part of Palestine occupied in 1948, some of us isolated by the monstrous siege and ongoing, devastating assault on the “Gaza prison,” some of us isolated under the systematic Judaization campaigns on the “Jerusalem prison,” and some isolated from Palestine altogether, dispersed across all corners of the globe.
It is now time for this tragedy to end.
In these days, we write a new chapter, a chapter of a united Intifada that seeks our one and only goal: reuniting Palestinian society in all of its different parts; reuniting our political will, and our means of struggle to confront Zionism throughout Palestine.
In these days, we write a new chapter, a chapter of a united Intifada that seeks our one and only goal: reuniting Palestinian society in all of its different parts; reuniting our political will, and our means of struggle to confront Zionism throughout Palestine.
This long Intifada is, at its heart, an Intifada of consciousness. It is an Intifada to overthrow off the filth of quietude and defeatism. Because of it, the brave generations to come will have been raised, once again, on the fundamental principle of our unity. It will stand in the face of all the elites working to deepen and entrench the divisions in and between our communities. This Intifada will be a long one in the streets of Palestine and in streets around the world; an intifada that fights the hand of injustice wherever it tries to reach, that fights the batons of cruel regimes wherever they try to strike. This is an Intifada of bared chests and foreheads held high armed with revolutionary goals, deep knowledge and understanding, and the organizational toil and commitment of every individual and collective in the face the bullets of the Israeli occupation wherever they are fired.
Long Live a United Palestine
Long Live the Intifada of Unity
